Tuesday, September 23, 2014

The director of the People's
Vigilance Committee for Human Rights views positively the new Beijing-Delhi
relationship. Xi Jinping pledged investments worth US$ 20 billion over five
years.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) - Lenin
Raghuvanshi, director of the People's Vigilance Committee for Human Rights,
told AsiaNews that the new chapter in Sino-Indian relations established by
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping is a "positive
step that can boost pluralism in India and provide China a lesson in
democracy."

After Modi got Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe to pledge loans and investments worth US$ 33 billion, he
has now managed to get Xi to offer US$ 20 billion in investment over the next
five years.

In addition to marking the end of
a US-centred unipolar world, the pledges by the two Far East leaders will help
Modi meet the goal of a trillion dollars in investments by 2017 needed to boost
the country's growth.

"India needs to develop its
infrastructure and create new factories for the global market,"
Raghuvanshi told AsiaNews. "This opening up will also be good to us,"
said the human rights activist.

"If the Indian economy gets
the support of other foreign countries, this creates a completely different
dynamic within the country and promotes our democracy's pluralism, avoiding the
danger that certain forces, especially the most radical ones, might prevail
over others."

India is a land
of diversity with great and long History populated by many different peoples,
from many different origins, and who have many different religious, political
and philosophical views. Many abuses are committed against peoples due to their
caste or their religion and nature is more and more systematically ransack for
privates interests.

The mains
problems facing the country came from two things: the implementation of a
"culture of impunity based on mind of caste with silence " - which is
a sharing believe that few can act without be accountable for their actions –
at the social, economic and political level, and the meet of this cognitive
problem with a context of market democracy and economic globalisation.

India is the
world’s largest liberal democracy. After its independence from the British
colonial rule in 1947 India adopted the path of social and economic development
and modernisation. The growth process led to increased levels of literacy,
education, wealth, and social mobilization. Decades after the economic reforms
in 1990 India achieved the economic status which is often portrayed as among
the success stories of the developing world. This national progress was not
without its pitfalls. Almost after more than 60 years of independence, a large
section of Indian population still complain for not availing the benefits of
development. The most marginalised sections of Indian society mainly the Dalit,
tribal, minority communities especially the Muslims and lower castes also known
as Untouchables still live in stark poverty and without any civil and political
rights.

India may be
known as one of the world’s oldest living civilisations with a vibrant culture
and diversity of its people and languages. Paradoxically, this enormous Indian
diversity also hides a darker side in the shadows of its culture known as the
caste system. Embedded in Indian feudal culture based on mind of caste for the
past many centuries, the Hindu caste system is considered as one of the world's
longest surviving forms of social stratification. It divides society into
social classes or castes and this graded inequality has the sanction of
classical Indian religious scriptures.

In India the
caste hierarchy dictates the lives of its citizens even today. The tribals,
Muslims and the lower caste or untouchable communities face discrimination and
oppression due to their social status. As a result they have been further
marginalised in the society and denied their basic rights.

Harinath
Musahar a survivors of police torture from Musahar (Mouse-eater) of Varanasi in
India says in his testimony, “Day and night, family’s worries used to bother
me. I used to think, if my wife visits me in the lock up then she would be
upset seeing my condition. On the eighth day I was sent to the jail. Then I
stayed there for two and half months, where I was treated. When I was in jail,
I became desperate enough to see my wife and children. It always crossed over
my mind, what fate had befallen on me and I am suffering for whose sins, is it
not that I am facing it for being born as a ‘Musahar’.[i]”

Musahar[ii]
means “mouse-eaters”. They are considered “Untouchable” – people tainted by
their birth into a caste system that deems them impure, less than human.
Musahar are relegated to the lowest jobs and live in constant fear of being
publicly humiliated, paraded naked, beaten, and raped with impunity by
upper-caste Hindus seeking to keep them in their place. Merely walking through
an upper-caste neighbourhood is a life-threatening offence. The main business
for them, even today, is to kill rats.

Despite the
fact that untouchability was officially banned when India adopted its
constitution in 1950, discrimination against lower castes and Musahar has
remained so pervasive. In order to
prevent discrimination based on caste and religion, the government passed
legislation in 1989 known as The Prevention of Atrocities Act. The act
specifically made it illegal to parade people naked through the streets, force
them to eat faeces, take away their land, foul their water, interfere with their
right to vote, and burn down their homes. Many of the youngest in the community
do not found entry in the schools since the upper castes do not want their
children to study along with the Musahar children. Since then, the violence has
escalated largely as a result of the emergence of a grassroots human rights
movement among Musahar to demand their rights and resist the dictates of
untouchability.

The severest
human rights violations in India, as the widespread use of custodial torture,
are closely linked to caste-based discrimination. In the context of crime
investigation, suspects are tortured to enforce confessions. Due to the absence
of an independent agency to investigate cases, complaints are often not
properly proofed and perpetrators are nor prosecuted and punished. The
discrimination of women and gender based violence which includes domestic
violence, dowry linked violence, acid attacks, sexual assault, sexual
harassment and sex-selective abortion is one of the most relevant human rights
issues in India.

My human right
focuses on advocating for the basic rights of marginalized groups in India
society. I have been working for the rights of bonded and child labourers and
other marginalized people in Varanasi and eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, India.

In 1996, I and my
wife Shruti founded the PVCHR, a community-based organization, to break the
closed, feudal hierarchies of conservative slums and villages by building up
local institutions and supporting them with a high profile and active human
rights network.

My Organization
PVCHR (www.pvchr.asia) has become the symbol of nonviolent resistance among the Musahar
communities fighting for dignity. Due to our commitment on behalf of the
marginalized, we have periodically suffered death threats. But we are continuously
fighting for future of our children, because we remember teaching of Edmund
Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good
men to do nothing."

The mains
problems facing the country came from two things: the implementation of a
"culture of impunity" - which is a sharing believe that few can act
without be accountable for their actions – at the social, economic and
political level, and the meet of this cognitive problem with a context of market
democracy and economic globalisation. This explanation will try to explain how
the combination of those two factors – cognitive and contextual – allow the
rise of a neo-fascism state – an authoritarian state which want to make one
country with one nation – and the implementation of an aggressive neo-liberal
capitalism – which perpetuate social and economic injustice. By this way, we will see how the neo-fascist
Hindutva project is use to perpetuate caste domination and allow the Indian
leaders to realize profit by selling the country to national and international
companies, and we will understand how this economic deregulation marginalized
lower castes and therefore, strengthening social division on castes.

After that, we
propose a way to change this situation by calling for the creation of a
"neo-Dalit" movement[iii] –
combining shudras and ati-shudras[iv]
from all regions which is going to formulate popular movement against ‘culture
of impunity’ through mobilization of opinion leaders from all communities.

India's many
problems are interconnected. In order to understand and solve them, they must
not be divided. What is needed is a comprehensive multi-layer and
multi-dimensional approach that takes into account economic, cultural,
political and social factors. PVCHR and its partners are actively attempting to
fill this opportunity space by courting constructive dialogue with other of all
stripes and ideological leanings. Focusing on the diversity of caste
experience, rather than counter-intuitive to movement goals of creating Dalit
self-esteem, represents a primary step toward creating lasting structural
change in the process of creating Dalit self-esteem.

A
multidisciplinary approach to a better understanding of the actors and factors:

India has one
of the highest GDP rates of the world. As a "developing economy" in a
global world-wide economy, the country tries more and more to insert themselves
on the international market for goods and capital. This amazing economic growth
is beautifully accompanied by the establishment of democracy, and seems made
India as a paradise under construction. But this lovely frontage is hiding many
inappropriate practices such as poverty, brutality and nature destruction.
Let's begin this round trip of those practices by a little bit of economic
policy.

We can describe
Indian economic policy as a conversion to the neo-liberalism religion with a
brutal "shut up" ritualization. On one hand, politicians use India as
a reservoir of raw materials. They allows big corporation to exploit nature,
and destroyed a fragile ecosystem who's allow rural peoples to live since the
down of live, and they sell all the national key infrastructure – such as
water, electricity, health, telecommunication, transport, education, natural
resources – to privates companies in order to make money through corrupt
practices. This privatization process of state and land is also strongly
encouraged by neo-liberalist global institutions – as the World Bank, the
international monetary funds, etc.

In the other
hand, such practices of piracy again People – who is dispossesses of the wealth
of his country by political and economic leaders - are allows by authoritarian
and violent measures that government takes again peoples who trying to mutiny
again this spoliation. Police is using torture, army is sending against
citizens who is supposed to defender and hazardous legislation which makes both
of them safe from any penalty for the violation of human rights are enacted –
as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act[v]
and Armed Forces Special Power Act[vi],
which are as much used against terrorists than against peoples who attempt to
peacefully criticize these policies. During that time, other legal texts are
enacted to protect and attract multinational companies in order to provide to
them fiscal and legal advantages on a very broad definition of what we call the
"free market"– as the Nuclear Civil Liability Bill which limits
liabilities of Transnational companies (TNC) for nuclear industrial disaster!

By this way,
Indian leaders try to create a good "investment climate" for big
corporation, allow them to play their dangerous economic game with all the
rights and no duties, and with a few and controlled popular contestation. So
India is a beautiful dream for TNC and a daily nightmare for rural and urban
workers. Furthermore, we should understand that this situation is dangerous,
not only because this seems to foreshadow the establishment of an authoritarian
regime which allow brutal political repression with impunity, but also because
this political impunity is put in place
alongside with the implementation of an economic policy of corporate impunity.

But this
political and economical culture of impunity cannot only be fully understand by
the opening of Indian market to the international one or by the corruptive
practices that plague public and private institutions. Behind those external
factors, there is a cognitive reason which is also very important to understand
such behaviours among actors: caste system & mind of caste.

Group-based
social hierarchy is a universal feature of modern human societies. Though the
degree of inequality varies across societies (Sala-i-Martin, 2002), resources
in each are generally distributed on the basis of group status such that power
and positive social value (e.g., well-paying jobs, access to good healthcare)
tend to be disproportionately allocated to members of dominant groups (Jackman,
1994; Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006;Sidanius & Pratto, 1999).
Maintenance of group-based hierarchy is not simply achieved through physical
force and intimidation, but also through the use of relatively stable
ideological beliefs that make inequality seem morally just and fair (e.g.,
Jackman, 1994; Jost & Banaji, 1994; Sidanius, 1993; Sidanius & Pratto,
1999).[vii]

Indian society
has lived for hundreds of years on a strict and rigid social hierarchy based on
the Brahmanism stream within Hinduism. The caste system - which so many peoples
see wrongly as concomitant to Hinduism – is a social organisation of society
which allows upper caste to do whatever they want – including psychological and
physical tortures - to lower castes and women, who are considered as inferior.
Those last ones have just to accept this supremacy theoretically founded by
gods but actually righting by human to implement an unequal political regime.
This believe created a cognitive complex of inferiority and superiority –
respectively for the lower and the upper castes – which allowed the
implementation of a national culture of caste and social impunity, itself
perpetuate by a culture of silence created by fear, pain and lack of
self-esteem of the lower castes.

But the story
doesn't stop here, because all those "cultures of impunity" which
allow a minority group to govern and exploit the majority of the peoples can be
partly questioned by civil society organisations and protest movement who want
to reverse this cognitive and social pyramid or, at least, flatten it. For
those reasons, power holders use many means to divide lowers castes majority
and divert them from the key issues that face India - through communitarianism
hatred – and ensure their freedom of act as leaders - by enact draconian laws
to so-called protect peoples from communitarianism terrorism act that they
contribute to create themselves.

So, political
impunity and economical impunity are two side of the same social impunity coin.
Social activists and lower castes who want defend right of dalit & tribal
and critics the system are beating by the police and the army without any
respect for their humanity, while neo-liberalism allows upper castes and big
corporation to make profit with all impunity, because peoples fighting each
other for religion issues or because they do not dare to attack the Brahmanism
power.

In this
division process of the poorest majority, those who try to keep their power use
classical methods in order to conserve their social position. They know that
hate call for hate. This is a universal law. And when government leaders begin
to feed communal hatred between their own citizens and practice authoritarian
political repression, we can qualified it as a "neo-fascist" state
because he implement a national culture of hatred against difference, and love
– or at least blind respect – for
authority.

There is deeper
questions and analysis. Just that some political leaders have an interest to
create divisions on society in order to conserve their power? Or maybe just
that the true aim of the Hindutva project is to divide peoples in order to
allow traditional power holder – upper castes – to keep ruling the country and
keep easily running their business with economic leaders? Or just that those who promote genocide and
mass-killing can do it with impunity and that there are actually reward for
this?!?

Actually, This
example of Gujarat Genocide[viii]
and recent result of 16th parliamentary election in India highlight
well that neo-fascism and authoritarian Hindutva project which feed communal
hatred and divide the poorest majority of the society are also promoted by
economic leaders in order to hide the implementation of an economic policy of
impunity, which is supposed to make India as an attractive country for foreign
investments and enrich both political and economic leaders.

So, we can say
that all those political repression, police torture, bureaucratic corruption,
economic exploitation of human and nature, and rigid hierarchy of social
domination are allow as much by the implantation of those social, political and
economic cognitive cultures of impunity than by external factor such "the
dangerous cross-currents of neo-liberal capitalism and communal
neo-fascism"[ix].

The creation of
a popular protest movement through the reformulation of a political identity:

We have seen
that all those problems which look apparently different are actually linked
together. We will see now that this multiplicity of causes can be overcome
together by creating a unity process. A People's one.

What is the
best way to fight again a neo-fascist politics of castes and communities
division? Answer is unity. Which kind of unity can we create to fight against
caste system – which is the origin of social division and cultures of impunity
– and neo-liberalism – that increase the gap between have and have-not and
deprives many people of the benefit of natural resources?

First, a union
of lower's castes. I mean a union of lower caste from all religions, because
misery doesn't matters of theologies. A union between shudras and ati-shudras,
or between dalits and ati-dalits, and a union with Muslim lower castes and
other marginalized peoples. A movement of the poor and the abused people for
breaking the economic exploitation and the silence culture of caste torture is
another unity. A movement is against Brahmanism and caste system, but not again
Hinduism and upper-caste people. A movement is against neo-liberalism
capitalism, not against democratic capitalism based on rule of law, peoples’
welfare and pluralism.

Unity of all
broken peoples by existing system and progressive people is the best way to fight against this culture
of impunity with norm of exclusion and
because we don't think that change will come from peoples who benefit of this
system. So, structural change can only come from the bottom of the social
pyramid. I propose to call this movement: "neo-Dalit", because this
is the Dalit community who has suffering most of all for this entire situation
and because this name is already synonym of political struggle created by Baba
Saheb Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar[x].

Of course,
create a sense of belonging to an imagined political inter-caste community may
seem impossible, as in the caste structure of society is old and perfectly
integrated into the everyday life and that this change of identity require a
sacrifice from both of those castes and communities. The Shudras must learn to
deny their right of lord (feudal) on ati-Shudras if they want to break free of
their upper castes masters. On the other hand, the extended reformulation of
the term "Dalit" also requires an ati-Sundra sacrifice, as these take
away the monopoly of the first identity that they recognizes as legitimate,
from the first name that they accept to name themselves and which is synonym of
their own political fight. The first name that their use with a little bit of
pride.

This
integration problem is even greater when we try to include in this movement the
"old" - but actually still - lower caste who converted to Islam or
Christianity.

Because of all
those difficulties, we have to well understand and emphasis the sameness among
those different social groups. First, we should make them understand that they
are both castes slaved and aliened by the upper castes through caste system.
There are a majority who is rule by a minority in a country who is
theoretically become a democracy more than sixty year ago. Second, we should
show them that main economic resources and power are hold by the upper castes,
and that there is no sense to fight between each other's or give a positive
answer to communitarianism hatred because such behaviors will not implement
neo-Dalit lives conditions.

The classical
example of mind of caste and its implication that the landless Dalit is
fighting with a poor Shudra belong owner of small land because the Dalit cow
damages the Shudra field for food in Belwa village of Varanasi. During that
time, the rich upper caste – landlord of a hug superficies where are often
exploited Shudras and ati-Shudras – has not to deal with this kind of problems,
because the caste mentality allow him to beat lower casts in all impunity,
because lower castes have internalized this brutal domination that they now
regard as normal and because the upper castes have police in their pocket. In
this kind of situation, we should explain to the Dalit and the Shudra that this
conflict situation is the result of their marginalize situation that they share
together due to the caste mind. We should show to them that they sharing a
common problem which require a unity response.

By this way, a
united movement of protest of this poorest majority will have enough power to
fight – in a non-violent way – again the rich minority who have seen from too
much time as "un-attackable", against religious leaders who feed
hatred between communities or divided lower castes, and against others corrupt
officials who believe that they can racked and abuse of poor peoples with
impunity because they don't have money to enforce their right in a corrupt
political regime.

Because the
"divide for better ruler" politics is become an institution in the
country: what better answer than a unification process of lower castes from all
religions and further unity with progressive people born in Upper caste, who
are against caste system can we give to create a unified social movement again
Brahmanical caste system, communitarianism based on neo-fascism and neo-liberal
capitalism.

A union of
lower castes against the castes alienation, a union of religions against
communitarianism, a union of the poor against neo-liberalism are three fights
lead by one community, the neo-Dalits.

But what is
about the means of our fight? How such social movement of unity can emerge? On
which kind of struggle should it lead? These questions are important and needs
to be asked.

The creation of
a neo-Dalit political party doesn't seem to be the right choice. Political
party who want defend the poor are not going to raise enough money to play the
election games and leaders who will be involving in the institutional game have
good chance to be socialize to the corruptive rules of those institutions. The
risk is that see them takes some distance with the people that they are
supposed to defender or, worst, playing the democratic game only for their own
profit – as Ms.Mayawati Kumari (BSP Dalit leader) who made hidden alliance with
RSS[xi]
(Dalit – Brahmin social engineering, not attacks against caste system) because
she expected to run for prime minister election. Another way seems to be
preferable. Many dalit political leaders joined BJP and its alliance in recent
parliamentary election which is backed by RSS.

It is better to
promote a reconciliation movement among different castes and religious
communities in the grass-roots level in order to create contact among those who
was speared for a long by communitarianism and Brahmanism. Connection and
meeting are the best way to fight again dangerous prejudices that lead to
community's hatred and reverse the process of division between lower castes.
But it is clear that this unification will not appear "like that" and
that we need, first of all, to create a hug and strong network among all the civil
society organizations who fight separately for the Shudras, ati-Shudras,
Muslim, Christian, worker class, farmer, etc. Because the best way is to
achieve this union and create a neo-Dalit social movement of protest begin by
coordinated actions lead by a shared interpretation of our common problems.

For this
reason, this present call is destined to all Suhdras and ati-Shudras, to all
organisations who fighting for the respect of human right, to all progressive
peoples – whatever her/his caste, religion, sex or social class – who want to
reverse this process of state-privatization, abuses of natural resources and
division of society through hatred spiral feed by communitarianism, feudalism
and patriarchal-ism implement by the Brahmanical caste system and its Hindutva project.

But one
question remains: what is the best way to bring together different social
groups? I think that this process should begin by a closer link between opinion
leaders and others representative of those groups. This idea has nothing new.
Few times after India independence, Gandhi-ji has already show use that it is
possible to put a term to communalism fight by a non-violent way. I talk about
what peoples called "the miracle of Calcutta". Gandhi-ji was able to
engage a disarm process of all gang of the city, but was not satisfy by this
victory. He demanded more. He asks to the leaders of Muslim and Hindu
communities to give promise that they will keep peace between them. And, ho
"Miracle", Calcutta and his areas had never seen more any sectarian
riots.

This history
shows us how it is possible to create peace between communities and how opinion
leaders have a great role to play in such process. For that reason, the
creation of a neo-Dalit movement can't only begin with an approximation of the
elites. We should organise much more meeting with all those communities
representatives in order to make them work together and learn to know betters
each other's. By this way, they will probably learn that they protect different
communities which deal with different problems but which sufferings from the
same culture of impunity and neo-liberal alienation.

On the
grass-roots level, we should broke the silence wall and enhance self-esteem of
the lower castes in order to give them back their dignity and make them actors
of their own change. Moreover, we should work to bring the communities together
by creating some "sharing public space" for Shudras and Dalit, and
for Hindu and Muslim. This last point is important, because most of the
socialization processes seem to happen on the streets – where every communities
and castes are together but remain speared in different district or sidewalk –
and place of worship – where ati-Sudras remain only tolerated by the others
castes.

So, to resume
our proposition, we want to emphasis three ways that the neo-Dalit movement
should take in order to improve their political, economic and social situation.
First, we can fight again political repression impunity by legal process. Many
Human rights organisations are already fighting in this way in order to
transform the Brahmanical "rule of lord" by making them respect the
"rule of law". Second, the social impunity should be defeat by
changing cognitive weakness which made some peoples victim of their inferiority
complex and other peoples tormentor due to their superiority complex. We need
to created commons forums for neo-Dalit in order to break the wall of silence
which leads to the acceptation of this situation and to launch a speech process
which will teach them that they are equal and they are sharing commons
interest.” PVCHR are developing nearly two hundred model village based on
concept of Neo-Dalit movement.

Neo Dalit
movement is a sign of hope, honour and human dignity for most marginalized
people facing discrimination based on race, caste, religion and gender. Nelson
Mandela legacy is path for PVCHRs' Neo dalit movement to bring unity of
different communities against Caste system, feudalism, Communal-fascism and
Neo- Liberalism in India through reconciliation for justice and human dignity
against culture of impunity based on silence, which is going to contribute in
posterity and pluralistic democracy in world.

Rabindranath
Tagore[xii], a
Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries and recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 rightly
described a value for India in his follows poem in Gitanjali[xiii]:

Where the mind
is without fear

and the head is
held high;

Where knowledge
is free;

Where the world
has not been

broken up into
fragments

by narrow
domestic walls; ...

Where the clear
stream of reason

has not lost
its way into the

dreary desert
sand of dead habit; ...

Into that
heaven of freedom,

my Father, let
my country awake.

My above paper
titled ‘Crisis of democracy and the Caste System in India’ presented in
International symposium on ‘Globalisation and the Crisis of Democracy’ at
Gwangju Biennale.

[vii]
Ideological Support for the Indian Caste System: Social Dominance Orientation,
Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Karma Sarah Cotterill*a, James Sidaniusa, Arjun
Bhardwajb, Vivek Kumarc Journal of Social and Political
Psychology,jspp.psychopen.eu | 2195-3325

Friday, September 12, 2014

wo persons fighting for human rights in different parts of India were awarded a prestigious regional human rights prize on April 30, this year.

Lenin Raghuvanshi: In the forefront against caste-based discrimination

The 2007 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights went jointly to Lenin Raghuvanshi for his resistance to caste-based discrimination in the country's north, and Irom Sharmila for her resistance to the indiscriminate use of military force against civilians in the north-east. Dr. Lenin as he is better known and leads the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), which comprises more than 50,000 activists working against caste discrimination and torture across five Indian states.

The Korean awarding committee said that Dr. Lenin had brought hope back to thousands of bonded labourers and those suffering human rights abuses due to India's caste system, especially Dalits. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), which has worked closely with the PVCHR for a number of years, congratulated him on his receipt of the award.

"Dr Lenin and his colleagues are tackling deep feudal practices that go back thousands of years and require immense dedication and effort if they are to be eliminated; and they must, if human rights and democracy are ever to have any meaning in India," said Basil Fernando, Executive Director of the Hong Kong-based regional rights group. "We have no doubt that he is a very worthy recipient of this award and that it will contribute much to his further efforts," Mr. Fernando added.

Dr. Lenin had earlier been acknowledged as a social changemaker by the international Ashoka Fellowship.

Irom Sharmila: On a hunger strike for justice since 2000

His co-recipient, Irom Sharmila, has conducted a hunger strike for the abolition of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the north-eastern states since the 2000 massacre in Manipur. She is being detained at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and being force-fed by drip.

"They both have fought for the same noble cause of the advancement of human rights and social justice, yet they still have a long way to go. The Gwangju Prize for Human Rights will boost their further struggles," the May 18 Memorial Foundation said in announcing the award recipients.

A ceremony to present the award was held in Gwangju on May 18. Previous recipients have included Basil Fernando, Jayanthi Dandeniya coordinator of Families of the Disappeared in Sri Lanka, and Angkhana Neelaphaijit chairperson of the Working Group on Justice for Peace in Thailand.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

The Gwangju Biennale, started in September 1995 in the city of
Gwangju in the South Jeolla province of South Korea, is Asia's first and most
prestigious contemporary art biennale.

Founded in memory of the 1980 civil uprising and the Gwangju
Democratisation Movement, the event showcases a global perspective on
contemporary art.

Ideas of destruction and renewal lie at the heart of 2014 Gwangju
Biennale, one of the world’s best-attended contemporary art festivals. Hosted
by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the Gwangju Museum of Art, the special
project ‘Sweet Dew-since 1980’, is a combination of lectures, exhibitions,and
performances. All this is done to create a new platform for discourses on
visual cultures.

As a part of this project, the lecture series will seek to analyse
the current state of reality in Korea, Asia, Europe, and the United States
through testimonies and debates over issues of energy and environmental crises;
the spread of neo-liberalism; transformation of the relations between capital,
labour, and the arts and the ongoing violence perpetrated by the state and
threat to democratic values. This lecture series not only tries to understand
our present reality, but also to articulate our desires for the future and form
the basis of the forthcoming Gwangju Manifesto.

Open to the public from September 5- November 9, the event has the
theme 'Burning down the House'.

The works on exhibition explore subjects that challenge the status
quo, including that of labour and gender issues as well as a loss of folklore
traditions in Asia’s contemporary commodity culture, according to artistic
director Jessica Morgan. The theme is a nod to a song by US. art-rock group the
Talking Heads.

I, Lenin Raghuvanshi (Leader of the social Movement for the
untouchable people, India), am going to present my paper titled ‘Crisis of
democracy and the Caste System in India’ during the International symposium on
‘Globalisation and the Crisis of Democracy’. Similarly the other panelists for
the symposium on 19 September are: Young-Suk Lee (Professor of English Language
and literature Gwangju University, Korea), Peter Bohmer (Professor of Economics
at Evergreen State College, US), Michalis Spourdalakis (Professor of Political
Science at University of Athens, Greece), Pyeong-Eok An (Professor of
International Relations at Daegue University, Korea), Ken Ishida (Professor of
History of International Politics at Chiba University, Japan), Jie-Hyun Lim
(Professor of History at Hanyang university, Korea) and Michael Kim (Professor
of International Studies at Yonsei University, Korea).

In my paper, I write, “India is a land of diversity with a great
and long history populated by many different peoples, from many different
origins, and who have many different religious, political and philosophical
views. Many abuses are committed against peoples due to their caste or their
religion and nature is more and more systematically ransack for privates
interests."

The main problems facing the country came from two things. First is
the implementation of a ‘culture of impunity based on mind of caste with
silence’, which arose from a shared belief that a few can act without being
accountable for their actions, be it at the social, economic or political
levels. Secondly, the problems arose from the meeting of this cognitive problem
with the market democracy and economic globalisation.”